Woohoo, this is my first NUAoB submission in over three whole months, so I had to make it extra-awesome. So what is it exactly? It's the I4-B35 heavy energy pistol, an EPW (energy-projectile weapon) used by Kai Ibrajin, one of my main protagonist OCs who I am currently in the process of heavily redesigning. Just like Dash has his trusty PK5 12mm heavy pulse pistol, I figured I should give Kai a comparably-badass weapon, along with his harmonic katana and his cybernetically-augmented fists.

Design Details

The I4-B35 energy gun is a heavy EP-type weapon custom-built by the Holy Xandu Nation to equip their highest warrior, Kai Ibrajin. It uses the same basic technology as the IX4 heat rifles carried by mainline Xandu soldiers, namely the rapid cycling, processing and heating of tungsten oxide ammunition pellets to create and fire superheated bolts of tungsten oxide particles. However, the I4-B35 is a prototype weapon that is semi-automatic, and its shots explode on impact, creating a small but devastating area of effect damage from the release of superheated thermal energy. Against living targets the I4B35 is many times more lethal than its mass-produced, rapid-fire rifle counterpart the IX4. Wounds inflicted by the weapon are severe fourth-degree burns...this level of injury completely burns away all flesh, leaving only bone tissue, and the intense heat convection of the shot flash-vaporizes fluids trapped in organs or arteries, causing small steam explosions or ruptures that cause additional damage to the target. Whereas the shots fired from a pulse weapon such as Dash's PK5 heavy pistol glow blue due to the jacket of partially-ionized plasma around the solid projectile, the shots from the I4-B35 and other thermal projectile weapons emit a blinding, golden-red glow due to the incandescence of the superheated projectile bolt. As a result, when Dash and Kai fight each other, the battlefield becomes ablaze with brilliant red and blue energy shots, red for Kai and blue for Dash, a symbol of conflict in the hearts of the two men.

Other Stuff

Anyways, I'm a little bit at a loss as to exactly how this weapon should work and be different from Dash's pulse gun, as I am faced with two options. I could either make it semi-automatic and fire more powerful, explosive superheated energy projectiles that behave like projectiles fired from Dash's PK5 gun, or I could make it rapid-fire and fire weaker, non-explosive superheated shots like basically a scaled-down IX4. I would love some feedback in the comments section, though I am leaning more towards making it semi-automatic (pistols are just better as semi-auto weapons in my opinion) and firing explosive, superheated energy bullets, since that's what I wrote in the above description.

Alrighty. Well, I really like this weapon, but I do have some things that I think should be added.

I, personally, think that a stock should be added, and also maybe some RIS could be added. But, the RIS are needed. The deign itself looks pretty awesome and sci fi'ish. I like the lights on this, not to much and no to less. I really like the trigger guard.

Also, I think the top right corner of the firearm should have some highlights on it. I also like the background used in this picture, it doesn't really take away the focus away from the gun and it also makes it so that you can clearly make the gun out. I also like the fact that you have both sides drawn. So, I can more or less imagine what it would look like.

Awesome firearm, I'll be looking forward to see more firearms from you.

Sorry for the late reply, but I'm here now. Anyways, glad you like this gun...I plan on redoing it though, getting rid of the brown plastic handgrip and replacing it with a different-colored grip, and overall giving the whole gun a slightly more streamlined appearance. I have already redone one of my proudest guns...remember the IX4, the energy-projectile assault rifle used by the Xandu, that fires superheated tungsten particle bolts? I revamped the whole design, and you can see it here: [link]

The I4-B35 is the "little brother" of the IX4, even though it is a prototype weapon used only by Kai, so I think I should redesign it to match the same style I used for the IX4, although maybe a tiny bit rougher around the edges since it's a one of a kind, heavily-modified prototype. My influences for the current aesthetic for Xandu weapons is inspired less by Halo, Star Wars, Aliens and Warhammer (the way my other factions' guns are) and more by modern Japanese designs for sci-fi guns, such as the assault rifles from Ghost in the Shell, the "GN" beam weapons from Gundam 00, and the railgun from Metal Gear Solid 4 (which I think was actually the same model used by Fortune in MGS2, but I'm not sure.) Even though Japanese sci-fi artists don't design guns as much as western sci-fi artists do, I generally love their designs.

The brown part looks like cheap wood. Maybe in 3D that wouldn't be so but I would have made that black or grey just to keep things uniform. That's the only criticism I can think of other than that this is a good design. The holes, lines and lights all go together great.

Well actually, the brown part isn't supposed to be wood at all, but brown plastic with a naugahyde-like texturing on the grip sections. There are no wooden parts of this gun, it's the PK5 that has the heavy hardwood gripstock. But still, I'm glad you brought this up, since I WAS planning on doing a mild redesign of this gun to change the brown plastic sections into gray, black or olive-drab plastic, and maybe get rid of the naugahyde texture. Which one of those three colors do you think would look best on this gun?

And yeah, if I ever learn 3DS Max, guns will probably be the first thing I will want to learn to model well, and I think these two guns would translate pretty nicely into 3D models, seeing as I've already done the left and right ortho views here. I dream of someday doing a Crysis total conversion using custom weapons and player models, primarily as a testing grounds to actually get to make these guns and fire them off in a real game environment. But that's a long ways off.

The Cry Engine 3 sandbox is free you can download it and make your own meshes to bring in. You can learn 90 percent of the 3D stuff on youtube and Blender just about as good of a program as 3DS Max. (I still prefer Max and Maya though)

I like that idea. I was going to go for more dark gray with a slight brownish tint to it (just to stay true to the original at least somewhat) but black sounds good too.

It's free? Cool! I didn't know that, but sadly I know very little about the development of high end games, and I don't expect myself to be able to start making presentable games for another 3-5 years. But I DO have 3DS Max 2011, just I've been far too lazy to follow any tutorials for modeling, texturing, rendering and all that stuff.

Looks pretty well done here. Function is basically sound scientifically, and in terms of awesome. My thoughts with regard to functionality: Since it fires a stream of particles, I would say have an ionizing chamber to charge the projectiles, and then an acceleration system to direct them after charging [otherwise itty particles would fly all over the place]. Can't be as accurate as a rifle, simply because there's not enough barrel length for the same accelerator, but for a higher-up in the order, amping the power is a definite green. As for the light auto vs heavy semi-auto thing: I would have it fire in bursts. You said it works off the same principle as an automatic, so this would fulfill that, and it would also give it the feel of a nice hand cannon. Basically, it would draw the stuff into the ionizing chamber, charge it up, and then fire it all over the space of half a second, drawing the next stream in to prep while it's firing. Then it becomes a really nasty barrage-type weapon, working to the effect of a longer-range thermal shotgun. Then with that, you could say the rifles have 3 or 4 rotating chambers, charging and firing in the manner of a gattling gun, and that's why they behave like automatics. Let me know what you think.

Actually this one's also an energy-projectile weapon, as it fires superheated tungsten-oxide rounds that carry a high-energy thermal charge to the target. These are also subsonic, like my other weapon you've commented on.

However I gave this comment of yours some thought over, and I'm glad you mentioned it. I am definitely thinking of making this an automatic or at least burst-fire weapon, competing with Dash's pulse gun by rapidly firing smaller, less-explosive shots that do less damage on their own but in rapid succession are more devastating (as opposed to Dash's weapon which is only semi-automatic, but fires larger rounds that make bigger explosions and thus can burn a much bigger hole in the target.) Still wanna make Kai's gun here fire a larger, more powerful round than the mass-production rifles that function on a similar premise, maybe compensating with a slower overall rate of fire.

But still, would it be a fair fight for the two warriors to fight each other and have one guy armed with an automatic weapon, and another guy only armed with a semi-auto one? I guess it's all in the strategy.

Finally, I haven't given a WHOLE lot of thought about how this weapon works, but I like your technical details and may use it for future reference.

I think burst-fire would be best for accomplishing all of that. Completely covers the higher power-lower firing rate thing with the rifles, and when done right, burst weapons just feel really stinkin nice. [More so with 1-handed firearms.]

Plenty of ways to balance it. You could say Dash's gun is focused more toward penetrating power, while Kai's is just all about sheer force and volume. Definitely could be made to work with the philosophies of the two groups.

It's okay, don't worry about it. Though I DO like it when people read the descriptions, but I don't believe in putting those silly "READ THE DESCRIPTION" stamps at the top unless I really have to. I consider it a form of attention whoring, so I don't like to do it for fear I'd annoy my watchers, especially when the description is tl;dr...and believe me, I am prone to making tl;dr descriptions

Yeah I've decided Kai's weapon here is burst fire, but guess what? Like I've said in a previous comment, Kai (and later Dash too) gets an upgrade towards the second half of the story arc, where he gets powered armor that now completely covers his body, including his face. I'm thinking that while Dash's armor upgrade looks practical, understated and definitely "military" (my inspiration, at least for the helmet, is the "grenadier" SPARTAN helmet from Halo Reach, and also the helmets worn by COG soldiers in Gears of War, yes he will have glowing eyes,) Kai's armor upgrade will feature ornate black, gold and red armor and trim, a fearsome-looking helmet with maybe a big, lion-like mane of red artificial hair (lol perhaps you could comb his helmet's mane when he's wearing it, My Little Pony style...lol, ) and an overall influence from anime mecha, like some of the more exotic-looking prototype mobile suits from Gundam. Only wearable. And smaller (obviously.) Hey, maybe you could help me design these armors in the near future, after the other stuff is done...

But I am getting WAY besides my point. My original point being, Kai's upgraded weapon goes from the simple I4-B35 prototype EP burst fire hand cannon shown here, to a full-on rifle-like weapon built, with alien technology, called a resonance cannon. The resonance cannon works similar to the stock heat-type EP weapons used by the Holy Xandu Nation, only it oscillates, ionizes and charges a more complex round, made of a ferrous material rather than tungsten oxide like a normal Xandu heat round (although there would probably be some tungsten components as well, for that extra-high temperature.) Basically each round, when charged, acts like a miniature but extremely powerful magnetron, releasing not just lots of superheated energy but also microwaves, which can penetrate deeper into flesh than normal heat energy and cause nastier burn damage (in ADDITION to the heat!) not to mention it can short out electronics to a degree too. Kai's resonance cannon is fully-automatic, and it cranks out these miniature, superheated microwave bombs at an impressive RPM (firing, RPM-wise, at a rate between the plasma repeater from Halo Reach and the plasma gun from the original Doom.) They fly faster than the energy projectiles from Dash's upgraded energy/pulse cannon, though they don't explode as much and are on the whole weaker. Pretty much Dash's weapons and fighting philosophy revolves around careful shots, strikes and finesse, while Kai's is all about brute force and sheer aggressive volume of shots fired.

Well, I did READ it.... Guess I just wasn't putting in so much to register it. Yes! Down with the like whores!... And all the like!... May they all die like whores!

Well, you know what they say. Bursting is Magic. Grenadier? I dunno.... That one seemed kind of strange to me.... It, along with the stock Mk 6 look like they have animal snouts, the Mk 6 moreso.... But I'm sure you've well improved upon the design. Yeah, the Xandu do seem to be the kind to make mini gundams. .... BRUSHIIIIEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 Hey, that reminds me.... I still have yet to get myself a little Fluttershy to put on my desk. Yeah, I'd be happy to help with that.... After I finally managed to get through everything.... Sooo much.... T^T

Oo, nice. Ah well I haven't played Doom before, so I wouldn't be able to use that as a reference point.... Unless I can find some Doom on Le Tube de la You. [How wonderful the internet is....] Yeah, that all makes sense. You, sir, are bloody wonderful.

Thanks a bunch! I have some bits I'm less than happy with, but so be it, I had a blast drawing it. Also my first deviation drawn with a Col-erase pencil, though of course converted to grayscale in Photoshop before I started coloring and shading it. This once concept art tutorial DVD I got myself shortly after my birthday party recommended a black Col-erase pencil for sketching, as the waxy lead is somehow preferable to a normal pencil lead. So far I'm actually pretty happy with sketching with this kind of pencil.